Invisible No More

Sometimes something very simple can do a lot for the psyche; an awning is one such thing. Even though it only took the pros at Twin City T & A (the "T & A" stands for "tent and awning", for those who may have other ideas) a little over an hour to install the awning, the effect of their work is profound and instantaneous. Unlike the battle-scarred illustrations that have graced the store's windows for far more months (approaching five) than originally had been intended, the awning goes up at just the right time - roughly two weeks ahead of opening - to create excitement, but not wear out its welcome.

The store finally gets its facelift.

As for those worn and weary window illustrations, one bit the dust today. Naturally, it was the one that had graced the door, and had thus been subjected to significantly more abuse due to repeated opening and closing. We finally ripped it down today - part of the Dough Man's head had blown away - and replaced it with a collage of menus, with our driver recruitment flyer in the middle (see below).

Dough Man finally bit the dust after a long, hard winter, giving way to...

...His crude makeshift replacement.

We may not be out of the woods yet, as far as facade improvements are concerned. My design and lighting expert Kevin Collins will be out on Thursday to put up my window vinyl lettering if everything works out; he'll also let me know if the awning is hung too high for the lights we'll be installing to extend overhead. Of course, the lighting equipment package still has to arrive for progress to be made on that end - of all things to hold us up, the brackets that should have been here weeks ago have still not arrived and, worse, Kevin hasn't been able to track anyone down to get some answers.

One way or another, with the awning up I'll be able to have a photo included in my postcard mailer that's scheduled to go out in April. Depending on how much we can get done on Thursday, Kevin may end up using Photoshop to provide an accurate depiction of the finished product.

On more immediately pressing matters, we are madly scrambling to find flooring tile - commercial grade VCT, specifically - for this weekend. I had falsely assumed that the big-box retailers would carry at least a basic white offering in a quantity sufficient for our needs. Apparently not. Right now I've got David searching far and wide in Chicagoland for someone who stocks what we need (he's up there for Valentine's Day). What my old man doesn't know is that I'm going to need him to go out to wherever we can find some tile and make the purchase with his credit card (I'll be immediately reimbursing him, of course) on the way down on Friday. He warned me about the lead time on flooring materials last Friday, but even then it probably would have been too late to order anything custom in advance, since the average lead time for commercial tile appears to be around two weeks.

Before I get too depressed about that, it would be wise to change gears and mention that I had another speaking engagement on Tuesday night. This one went more smoothly than the previous attempt, for a number of reasons. Most importantly, I took the time to organize my thoughts chronologically, taking the audience along for my journey beginning with the day I graduated; I didn't run out of steam and lose my train of thought after just ten minutes like I did the first time. Of nearly equal importance was the fact that everyone who was there wanted to be there, as they are part of the Collegiate Entrepreneurs Organization (CEO). I generally got the feel that people were a lot more interested in what I had to say this time around. I made it a little bit more interesting, too - I showed my brother's commercial from Champaign and distributed menus to all who attended. I had a solid Q&A session afterwards, and quite a few of them wished me best of luck and said they'll stop by when I open.

A Hint of Recognition: Publicity for my speaking engagement

So anyways, before this week is out, I have to figure out the flooring logistics, get my campusfood.com account set up, confirm my package expansion with Verizon and decide whether to purchase internet and cable TV through them, review workers comp quotes and choose the best one, pay a bunch of people, and not forget about Valentine's Day. Should be fun!